Hong Kong day 6

Hong Kong day 6: Macau

Sohs on the 6th day we were actually in Macau,not Hong Kong.We didn't need any visa so we just went over by ferry(can't remember,but i think only need passport).Had to wake up at 5 am to catch the earliest ferry so that we could spend the whole day in Macau.It was so early that we were forced to have McDs for breakfast.It wasn't as good as in Malaysia somehow.Doesn't taste as fattening or something...

The ferry ride was 1 hour 10 minutes.

One of the pretty lanes there.Macau has a lot of Portuguese influence because of the settlers,and even now you are more likely to see signboards in Chinese and Portuguese than Chinese and English.

Some of the buildings look like KL buildings.

One of the interesting shoplots there.Look,so many jakun tourists!

A water feature I saw in one of the lanes.There was another one with a cherub but i didn't take a pic.

Random nice building.

While walking through the shophouses,we accidentally found this old house that's called Lou Kou Mansion.It's not that big actually,just 2 floors of a shoplot,and they call it a mansion.But it was unique because it kinda reminds me of BabaNyonya houses,authentic old smelly building.Now it's used as a place to promote Chinese paper cutting artpieces.There were nicer pieces than the one above but then suddenly the artist appeared so i didn't take any more pictures,afterwards say I'm infringing copyrights or something.lol.

Decorative piece above the doors.

Notice how every surface just must have a carving or something on it.

Next,we went up to the Macau Museum,which feels like it;s on top of a really high hill.Wheeee...look at the road towards the museum and hear some Happy Tree Friends theme song playing.

One of the gazillion casino buildings that can be seen from the top of that hill.Looks so unstable right?Like some kind of bunga kantan or something.I think it's supposed to be flames.

Inside the Macao Museum,which used to be a fort.The museum housed an exhibition on macao culture and history,comparing it with western countries,especially in terms of export.There was also an exhibition on an olden times art school founder's artworks,which was western looking watercolours(think of old western illustrated flora and fauna speciment books)

Then we went to St Paul's Cathedral,which is just outside the museum.It's probably the most popular tourist spot in Macau.But actually it's just a wall *ahak* the rest is destroyed.BTW the said wall was damn huge so the nice detailed photos can't fit the whole wall.

taxi cab Macao style.

Macao is famous for it's almond biscuits and grilled meat.Just walk around the shops at lunchtime and you won't have to spend anything to feel full from all the food samples.These 2 guys are making the biscuits,which looks like it's made of some mixture of flour and packed into cubes,not baked.

We also went to A Ma temple.Got lost halfway and got a lot of exercise walking up and down the hills looking for it.Turned out that it was just near the sea.It was built to honour a Goddess that calmed the rough sea for the local fishermen.

Eh...surprise,I didn't take any pictures of the whole temple.Oh well,here are some little puppies for you to look at, they were sleeping at the temple and being sort of celebrities among the tourists.

The last stop was to see one of the kazillion casinos in Macao.It's practically sin city of China,and most of the casinos are owned by Stanley Ho.So you can imagine how rich he is.I wanted to go and see Venetian Macao and see what the fuss was all about but we ended up in Sands, which was the nearest to the harbour.No pictures though...cheh...i dunno why I didn't take so many key pictures that day.Free shuttle busses from the harbour to many of the casinos.That's good business sense.And later i found out there's free accomodation for loyal customers too.lol.I can just imagine dead bodies under the beds now.

In conclusion I think Macao has 2 sides to it.the casinos which are all about money and will only interest you if you're ready to loose a lot;and the olden part of Macao which is rather westernised and very charming but will make you walk your legs out.Overall very different from HK.

TTFN.